Main menu

Jaguar and Land Rover want to make paying for gas easier with in-car app

All you need is a new Jag or Land Rover and a Shell station

February 15, 2017

Share

Facebook

Tweet

Pinterest

Email

Paying for gas usually isn't a huge hassle (unless you have to stand in line behind someone who's buying dozens of lottery tickets) but Jaguar and Shell have teamed up to allow drivers to make payments via the car's infotainment system. Once a driver pulls up to a pump, he or she can select the amount of fuel they want to purchase via the Shell app, then pay securely via Apple Pay or PayPal. The app will display a receipt as a confirmation and also email it to the driver.

"In a world where cash is no longer king, customers are increasingly using electronic payments and contactless cards,” says Peter Virk, Jaguar Land Rover's director of connected car and future technology. “Making a payment directly from a car’s touchscreen will make refueling quicker and easier. With this new system, you can choose any pump at the gas station and pay for the fuel, even if you’ve forgotten your wallet or can’t find your credit or debit card."

If you've always wanted to experience the original Range Rover but had written off the best examples as long gone (or were rightly skeptical of the used examples in the classifieds), Land Rover ...

There are a couple limitations: The Shell app will work only at Shell stations, obviously, and for now, it'll only be available in Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles that feature InControl Apps as part of their infotainment systems. That's not a big population of vehicles, to put it mildly, and owners of slightly older Jags and Land Rovers will have to pay the old-fashioned way when the system is rolled out in North America later in 2017.

The upside is that these in-car payment apps are finally being rolled out into the market and will eventually be able to pay for things like parking spots, parking lots, tolls, car washes and fast food drive-thrus, most of which can be paid for with a phone even now.